


Unsettled

by Drosera_Sundews



Series: our Daemons watching over us [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angela is a workaholic, Daemons, Fareeha foils a jailbreak, Fareeha is a little shit, Gen, Gerard Lacroix is there for like 3 minutes before he's slammed into a wall and passes out, Jesse McCree rides a horse, Young Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, Young Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drosera_Sundews/pseuds/Drosera_Sundews
Summary: Everyone knows the story of how Jesse McCree ended up in blackwatch. Taken captive after a raid on the dreaded Deadlock gang, he was saved from a life in prison by Gabriel Reyes, who saw his potential and offered him a second chance.However, what very few know is that it wasn’t just McCree's skills as a sharpshooter the commander was impressed with.It was also how he - using nothing but his hat, his own daemon and a gun with no bullets - managed to almost escape a highly secure overwatch base.Key word being ‘almost’.





	1. Captured

It was dark when he woke up. Pitch black darkness. A familiar killer headache sat right behind his eyes. A sure sign he’d been in some pretty bad fighting, and judging his surrounding, he’d lost. 

“Well damn. Saba, you up? What the hell hap…” He attempted to raise his hand to rub at his eye. Only to find his hands bound in hard metal cuffs behind his back. Shit.

It all came back to him in a flash. The base at route 66, unloading a truck with newly arrived ‘goods’. The rest had come back, too early. Rushing in on horses and motorcycles, shouting about their location being compromised. Blind panic followed. He barely recalled how he’d been put to work loading as many illegal weapons as he could back into the truck. Then, being brought up to the roof. He remembered smoke and screaming, silhouettes of aircrafts against the setting sun. 

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Saba? Saba?!” 

“I’m still here.” 

He signed in relief, while at the same time becoming increasingly aware of the most unpleasant sensation of something very, very small moving around on, no IN his ear.

“Fucking… Saba what the hell!” 

“I couldn’t let them find me!” His daemon whispered in her high, and now incredibly soft voice. In his ear. Inside his ear! “Remember what happened the last time.” 

He grunted in affirmation, “where are we this time?”

Saba was silent for a moment, she also stopped moving. The young man became increasingly aware of the darkness and the silence around him. 

“Deadlock lost.” His daemon whispered, voice unsteady. “I should have watched your back, I was so stupid. But instead they snuck up on you and knocked you out cold. Without you on the roof they were inside the base in seconds. All the defenders they left behind. They. I don’t know. I hid as soon as you went out. They shot a bunch, but also took a few. Snake-eyes, Sickle, Cannon. I don’t know where they are, but I do know they took us on their plane. We could be anywhere.” 

“Shit, oh shit, fucking shit. Saba please, promise me you’ll keep on hiding.”

“I will.” 

She twitched, sending the most unpleasant sensation trough his ear to mingle with his persistent headache. “Please tell me you ain’t some spider or something.” 

“A termite. Stop complaining. I’m just trying not to be found.”

“You could have been trying not to be found in my hair or something. I’m even wearing my hat still. Go get in there. Oh and see my cigars are still…” 

The lights turned on. 

He yelped in shock and closed his eyes, almost in time to avoid the sharp sting of his headache intensifying. He groaned softly. He heard a door opening, something, or someone coming closer. He twitched, pulling his bonds pathetically. No use. He dumbly decided to keep his eyes closed and stay quiet. Maybe they wouldn’t notice him. 

“You know, it’s very rude not to introduce yourself.”

A voice, deep, female, and dripping with a cruel kind of confidence. Fuck. He realized with a shock this wasn’t some back room for stashing prisoners. It was an interrogation. Fuck, well, no use in staying silent then. The cowboy opened his eyes and faced his opponent. 

A doberman. A giant fucking doberman right up in his face. Bared fangs mere inches from his nose. The animal’s massive, muscled forepaws rested on the empty table as she grinned at him, hot breath blowing on his face. The blinding lamp behind her casting a strong silhouette, the light glinting in her eyes. 

A daemon? He was being interrogated by a daemon? He quickly glanced around, no human in sight, but, as expected, a large mirror sat behind the blinding lamp, showing his small, curled up form right in front of the savage looking dog. 

He was shaking, he was pretty sure he was visibly shaking, even. But somehow as he spoke, his voice came out calm and steady, though slightly slurred. “G’day ma’am.”

The dog snorted, leaning back somewhat. She regarded him with sharp eyes, looking him up and down. He felt ridiculously small in his too big battle armor, with his hat sagging past his ears. 

“Hold your tongue, cowboy, I’m not addressing you.” 

He swallows nervously. Saba. They were looking for Saba. 

He knew damn well what would happen if they got their hands on his daemon during an interrogation. Whoever ‘they’ were. Deadlock had been bad, but here he wasn’t some low ranking grunt. Here he was the enemy, and they would do much more than just pull the two of them away from each other till they almost passed out from the pain. 

“You must truly be a coward,” the dog spat, eyes still sweeping over his clothes. “Hiding behind your person like a little pest. What would you be, I wonder. A flea? A mangy rat? Sure would look the part with your scruffy human.” Her eyes darted up at his face again, lips parting in a fanged grin. 

“Deadlock’s feared sharpshooter. Look at you, you’re barely even bigger than me.” She barked a laugh. “What a joke.” 

He wisely kept his mouth shut as the massive beast laughed at him. It was weird, so very weird to be spoken to by a daemon instead of its person. Yet, where he was curled up, cringing away from her, she seemed utterly confident and in control. As if this whole interrogation was just a joke to her. A professional, dammit. 

The dog stopped laughing, and growled softly. Her eyes glinting in the shadow. 

“Unless you’re waiting for me to find you, little pest.” Her eyes narrows. “We know your leader has a rattlesnake. Would you have followed his example? Or maybe not entirely.” She reared up, claws clinking on the table, and sniffed him. Her nose almost touching the grimy fabric of his clothes. “A reptile I would have smelled, even through all the disgusting smoke and grime. A scorpion, perhaps? Yes, that seems like something deadlocks fines sharpshooter would do. Well let me tell you one thing, pest, I do not care.” 

The dog jumped fully on the table now. Scraping claws and barrel chest, with fangs on full display. Saba twitched nervously and it took her human all he had not to flinch or shake his head. 

“Venom or not, I’ll take you on. You have no power, here with medical professionals literally around the corner. And let me tell you one more thing.” She grinned, savagely, “Your venom may be fast, but my jaws are much, much faster. If you even think about trying to sting any daemon or human in here, I swear, I will tear your lanky, good for nothing human’s throat out myself!”

He gasped, shocked. “You wouldn’t!” 

She grinned. “Oh yes, I would.”

“Maria, that’s enough.” 

The dog daemon turned sharply, ears swiveling, before her tongue lolled out in a doggy grin. Tail wagging away as her human entered the room. 

If the dog looked intimidating, this man did even more so. Tall, dark skinned and with muscles that would put some of deadlocks brutest members to shame. The man wasn’t dressed like a police officer. Clad in a nondescript black uniform, no logos, nothing, and a black beanie. He smiled friendly-like as he approached, petting the dog daemon rubbing up to his leg. Yet, his eyes were hard and cold. 

He sat down heavily in the chair, studying the young man in front of him for a moment. 

“What’s your name?”

Caught off guard, he could only stare in blind panic. A name, a name. Quickly! 

“Jesse, sir, my name is Jesse…” Out of habit, he tried to tip his hat, but his hands only twitched feebly in their bonds. “Jesse McCree.” 

The man stared at him, deadpan look on his face. His daemon, now only visible from the head up, mimicked her human with a deadpan look of her own. Surprisingly, it was her who responded. 

“Jesse McCree. That is a terrible name for a cowboy.” 

“Listen darling you gave me five seconds.”

The man’s first impacted on the table with a giant bang, he flinched back. Instantly regretting his brief moment of bravado. 

“Listen carefully,” the man growled. No good cop bad cop then. “I’m not sure where this courage of yours is coming from, but let me assure you it’s unfounded. Your base was overrun, and all your buddies were caught. The rest of your sad excuse for a gang is all gone and they’re unlikely to come back for their goods, let alone their people. And while you were out, your friends, they talked.” He grinned, “we have everything we need. Deadlocks glory days are over. No one will be coming for you.” 

He paused, dramatically, while the newly branded Jesse McCree could only stare in horror. 

“You’re going to prison, and rest assured, I’m willing to be nice about it. If, and only if, you give me your name. Your real name. And if your cowardly daemon gets the fuck out here and shows itself.” 

He fell silent, staring the young man dead in the eye. It took Jesse all his willpower not to buckle under his gaze. 

“’S like I said, the name’s McCree.” He looked down, couldn’t hold the man’s gaze. “And I’m afraid dear Saba’s not feeling up for it today. She’s mighty shy, you know. And your dear doggo right there’s been looking at me like I’m lunch, sure doesn’t help her confidence.” Was he rambling? He was rambling. He closed his eyes, braced himself for impact as he heard the man growl under his breath. Obviously furious. 

Yet, the hit he expected never came. Instead, there was footsteps, moving away from him. He looked up, confused. 

The man was standing in the doorway. His dog already out of view, his expression dangerously closed off. 

“All right, fine. We’ll have plenty of time to settle these things. I will see you tomorrow.” 

And with that, he closed the door. The lamp turned off, leaving him bound in the dark. 

“Well shit.”

“No no, this is good.” His daemon whispered. “We have time.”

As Jesse sat in the darkness, accessing his situation, he realized a few things. First off, his weapon. His weapon was no longer on him. He could feel the holster dragging down his belt, but not with the familiar weight of his trusty revolver. Must have been knocked away when they ambushed him. Left on the roof, or most likely taken as evidence by this unknown group.

However, his weapon seemed to be the only thing missing. He was still in his scruffy, sand and blood covered armor. His serape was still there. They’d even left his hat well alone. Although he wasn’t too sure about the items he’d stashed in the rim. He guessed they’d been scared to let their daemons or themselves near his body. Deadlock did have a reputation of being packed to the brim with snake and scorpion daemons. 

He was thirsty. Terribly so. It was a familiar sensation for him, but coupled with the most likely impact-related headache, it was mighty uncomfortable. His bound arms were burning from the awkward position, the little muscle he had slowly acidifying. He shook his head, trying to jostle his hat to see if his cigars and lighter were still in there, but was greeted only with a more intense spike of headache and the uncomfortable sensation of dried blood pulling on his hair.

Saba, bless her, had climbed out of his ear. Her small form slowly making its way across his neck, settling under the brim of his head where she shifted, under the cover of darkness, to a slightly bigger form. He felt her weight, comforting now instead of aggravating. Light fur, probably a mouse of sorts. 

“I’m not seeing cameras.” She whispered. “But there’s still two people behind the mirror.” 

Jesse was going to ask how she was seeing anything at all. But figured he’d better not give these bastards more information than they already had. He settled for letting his head lull down, feigning sleep. He briefly felt soft wings smacking the back of his neck as his daemon resettled. A bat then, smart. He settled down, ready to play the waiting game. 

It felt like hours, sitting in the dark with burning arms and a pounding head, before Saba spoke up again. 

“They left.” 

“Fucking finally.” 

And at last his daemon finally moves. Turning into a proper mouse now and slipping under his hat.  
“Are my cigars still there?” 

“Yes, and the pins too, thank goodness.” 

He feels her weight moving around, struggling in the enclosed darkness of his hat, before emerging and daftly climbing down his bound arms. 

“I’ve only done this twice before.”

“Still our best shot.”

She hums in agreement and shifts again. He feels small hands clamping around his sleeves. More weight than he is used to. A lemur, he guesses. Something with agile hands. He eyes the window warily, knowing how nervous it makes her to turn into anything bigger than a rat. 

“Better get ready for another round of waiting.” 

“Whoop-die doo.” 

It’s a miracle in itself than an untrained daemon, who even only has hands on the best of days, managed to pick the metal handcuffs using nothing more than a set of bobby pins. And yes, it takes a lot of time. Enough Jesse’s sure his arms will be ready to fall off along with the cuffs. But even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, Jesse knows he and Saba have one more skill on their name besides their deadly sharpshooting, and that is being stupidly lucky under pressure. And thus, after what feels like another couple of hours of soft cursing, the handcuffs unlock and Jesse can finally stand up to his not very impressive full height, rubbing his wrists. 

Saba chitters happily and jumps on his shoulder, shrinking into a tiny meerkat that wraps around his neck. “So, what’s the plan?” 

“Think they left the door open?” 

“No, but it’s worth a shot.” 

The man did not, in fact, leave the door open. And, unfortunately, Jesse finds that this door also does not have a standard lock but rather some odd touchpad kinda thing that glows bright red as soon as he touches it. It worries him a lot. Deadlock never used stuff this high tech on a whim. Where the hell did they end up? 

He could shatter the mirror, but the thing is huge, it’ll be a lot of noise. Not to mention it might be rigged with sensors. “Let’s hope that dark man and his lovely dog aren’t the first to come by.”

His daemon shivers. “Please no.” 

“They gotta bring us water at some point I recon.” 

“Let’s hope so.”

And thus they settled down for the second round of waiting. 

This was the worst, Jesse reckoned as he sat on the cold ground, trying to ignore his pounding head, his sore throat and the hunger pains he felt slowly coming up. In a way, it might have even be easier to just keep sitting in that damn chair and sucking it up. Sure, it was gonna be torture tomorrow and prison soon after, but heck, he already got the threat of torture for not cooperating! Who’d know where active resistance would get him. But still, if there was even a small chance he could break out, and grab his freedom he should take it. He was a cowboy! Meant to ride across the endless deserts, sun above him, wind in his hair. Cooped up in prison was not the place for him. He’d rather face death. 

Besides, if someone did come in to bring him food or drinks, and he could overpower them, it’d be childs’ play, right? Sure, he had no weapon, but if he could just stay in the shadows, slip past unseen and get outside. They wouldn’t give chase to one lone grunt of a burned out gang, right? What could he even do. 

What would he even do? 

He was so lost in thought, head spinning with insane options and stupid plans, he almost straight up missed the moment he’d been waiting for. 

In fact, he only realized the door had been opened once he heard the bowl of water clatter against the ground, as the person now standing in front of him realized he wasn’t sitting in his chair anymore. 

He froze as the tall man in front of him reached for his waist. Eyes still on the chair, unaware of the prisoner slumped against the ground behind him. Thankfully, he did not pull out a weapon, but rather a kind of field communicator. He must have thought Jesse had already gotten out of the room instead of slumbering behind the door. He wouldn’t get a chance like this again. Jesse wasted no time. 

He waited a split second, till the man’s eyes were on the screen of his communicator. With no item suited for a clean knock on the head, he settled for grabbing the man by the shoulders and twisting him sideways, headfirst into the wall. 

The element of surprise was the only thing he got going for him. The man was taller and much, much stronger than he was, but he managed. With a clatter, the man fell, and Jesse jumped back as he got to his feet. The impact of the wall not enough to knock him out, as he fixed his gaze on his unexpected opponent. 

Something snarled to his right. The man’s demon, some dog-sized cat thing with ridiculous fur and hardly a tail to speak off. It snarled as it scanned the room, looking for a daemon to attack. 

Saba came at her from behind, having flown off in bat form. She shifted mid air, and caught the stubby cat in the back of the head with the giant golden paw of a slender mountain lion. The combined strain proved to be sufficient, as both the man and his daemon slumped down. Out cold. 

Jesse had already lost his gun, his trusty Peacekeeper, to this stupid gang or police-corps or whatever. He didn’t have many possessions and absolutely didn’t want to leave anything else behind. But alas, he did realize that even if their base had only a few rooms, he wouldn’t make it through in his regular outfit. 

The man he knocked out was much taller than him, his clothes wouldn’t fit. Not on his regular frame at least. But, if he kept his light armor on, and put the man’s clothes over it, it looked sort of normal. Ignoring how the sleeves fell past his hands at least. 

Damn, of all his possessions, he was least attached to the armor. 

He actually stood still for a few second after he put the hat on the knocked out man’s head. A painful twinge in his chest he stubbornly ignored, as well as the burning behind his eyes. He could collapse and panic later, when he was free. He’d chained the other man to the chair in his place so, hopefully, at first glance, it would look like it was still him in that chair. Until the man woke up screaming at least. He wouldn’t have much time. 

The man was much taller than him, older too, with pale skin and shiny black hair. A small mustache adorned his face. Jesse would have a lot of trouble passing for him, but it was his best chance at getting through their hideout unseen. 

“The fuck is this thing even? Some kind of cat?” Saba was kneeling behind the table in meerkat form. Swiftly darting around the unconscious cat-daemon. 

“Don’t know don’t care. Can you mimic it?” 

“Probably.”

Saba looked ridiculous as an overly fluffy, tailless cat. But then again, so did the tall man’s daemon, so it was fine. He snatched his communicator, just in case. “Let’s go.” 

He left through the open door and ran into a pleasant surprise almost right away. The door led to a very tiny backroom, from which he could see the room he just escaped from. It had only a small table, two chairs and a couple of dossier drawers. And, on the table, a gun. A very, very familiar gun. 

“Peacekeeper!” 

God, was he glad to have the gun back in his hands. He realized right away, grabbing her, that she’d been meddled with. Cleaner than usual, it seemed someone had taken her apart and gave her a good look over. Also, he noticed the chamber was empty. No bullets. 

He quickly scanned the small backroom. No bullets. 

Shit. But still. It was a great relieve to have his gun back. And even without the bullets, it could be mighty useful. He tucked her back inside the holster. 

Now for the hard part. 

“You ready Saba?” 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” grumbled the highly uncomfortable stubby cat thing by his side. 

Jesse took a deep breath, steeled himself, and opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note to readers, this story has already been completed and will be around 11,000 words long. However, beta reading and such need to happen, thus, the rest will follow later.
> 
> Also, first fanfic ever, whoo! I hope you all liked it so far :)
> 
> Some more quick things about this work. I've incorporated a bit more of the lore from 'his dark materials' into this story than is typical in AU's such as this. No worries though, it will be understandable to everyone, even those who haven't read the series.
> 
> There is some things in the original lore that I have chosen to discard, however. In the original books, all humans have the ability to recognize whether a creature is a daemon or a regular animal, going so far that they can pick a single sparrow-shaped daemon out of a flock of hunderds of regular ones. I've chosen not to incorporate this because it was never really explained and quite frankly I find it somewhat illogical. Instead, all daemons look exactly like animals untill they shapeshift, talk or someone is as stupid as to touch them.
> 
> This will become relevant later :P
> 
> Deamons so far:  
> Jesse McCree: Saba - unsettled  
> Gabriel Reyes: Maria - doberman  
> Gerard Lacroix: ??? - lynx


	2. Escape

He was barely three corridors in when he realized he’d had no idea what he signed up for.

This wasn’t the hideout of a rival gang. Or even a police office. Far from it. It looked like a god-damned military base. Only much more modern than he’d expected. The walls were white, seemingly plastic or maybe even hard light. Dim TL lights above him shone upon a long, twisting hallway flanked on all sides by countless doors. It was pristine, eerie, and empty. 

He had to remind himself to walk with purpose, as if he really knew where he was going. His heavy boots echoing uncomfortably loud in the empty corridor. He kept his head down, but did spy a small, white orb coming out of the ceiling in the corridor ahead. Camera. He took a turn right quickly. Saba staying close to his feet. 

Most of the many doors he passed were closed, with no identification safe for a small metal sign bearing a number above some small text he couldn’t read. A few had light coming from under them, he walked quickly past those. 

A door at the end of the corridor led him into a larger one. Here there were windows, large ones across the entire length of the thing. It was dark outside, as expected, and he could really only see another shiny white building sitting opposite his one. But it gave him enough of a sense of space to tell that he was several floors up. He still had no idea where he was, though. 

“Just get to ground level,” Saba whispered, “I’ll turn into a horse and we’ll run off into the sunset, or the sunrise I guess. They won’t lay a hand on us ever again.” 

Jesse didn’t reply. His chest constricted, he wasn’t sure what he’d say. That he’d have no idea what to do without Deadlock, that that sounded like the best god damned fantasy he’d ever heard or maybe he’d just straight up cry. Better to stay silent and keep watching the ground in case there was cameras. Let’s hope the grime and blood in his hair could make it pass for shiny black instead of his own ruffled brown. If only he could change his shape like Saba could. 

He reached a stairwell. Descended. Crossed a few rooms that looked like abandoned laboratories. Some machines were still on, whirring away in the dark. What the fuck. He backtracked when he lost sight of the windows. Went up the stairs again thinking he’d ended up in a cellar and, like a perfect little cherry on top, managed to make a round on what he assumed was the first floor and ended up right where he started, at the stairwell. 

Well, if he was being watched through cameras, their security guard would at least have some grade-A live entertainment for the night. 

He went down the stairs again, Saba close on his heels. Thinking he could try to find an exit near the cellar laboratories, when the communicator he still had tucked in his too large uniform went off. 

“Fuckin’ shitfuck!”

He fumbled with the thing, almost dropping it. The noise horridly loud in the silent corridor. Off! How could he turn the damn thing off!

He cursed under his breath, wishing his old gang could have just learned him to read along with his plethora of weapon-related skills.

“Gérard, come in? Are you still up?” And unfamiliar, male voice asked through the communicator. 

He swore softly and held his breath. He had an accent, and he knew it. There was no way he could fake some random cop-dude’s voice. 

“If you’re still up, we could really use your help. There’s been a bit of a breach.” The man’s voice was calm and steady, but he could sense the underlying urgency. 

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. 

“Gérard, I lost Fareeha. I really need to find her.” 

Faa-whatnow? 

“I promised Ana I’d watch her tonight since she’s been busy with the fallout of the Deadlock raid. Left her in her room, in bed, I thought. Turns out she snuck out. I can’t find her anywhere! I could really really use two extra sets of eyes right about now. So if you get this, please comm me! I’ll continue searching for now.”

A click, and the line went dead. 

Jesse’s breath escaped in a whoosh. The unfamiliar man on the com had sounded exhausted, and mildly panicked. But not enough to warrant and escaped prisoner on the loose. They didn’t know he broke out! At least not yet. 

He grinned at Saba, thrusting his fist up in a silent gesture of victory. Now he just needed to silence this damn thing though. Before someone…

A door opened down the hallway.

He yelped softly, Saba jumping up almost a meter in the air. Her already ridiculously fluffy fur standing on end. 

“…understand that this is all new and exciting to you. But you can’t work yourself to death like this. You’ll be of no good to anyone with a burn out.”

A deep, vaguely growly yet polite voice drifted down his way. Jesse looked around panicked and, seeing no open doors, pressed himself against the wall in the shadow of a few large, cardboard boxes that had been seemingly left in the hallway. 

“I know that, Winston, I do understand. But I know they count on me and I know that the technology has so much potential. Every day we waste now is another day someone could die. The longer I wait the more lives will be lost.” 

A woman, sounding frustrated. 

He could see her, he realized. A silhouette against the light reflected in the massive, dark windows on the other side of the corridor. A young woman in a long coat, hair swept back in a high ponytail. He didn’t see a daemon, but then again, the reflection was fuzzy. Something small he’d easily miss. 

Saba whined softly next to him and shifted. Her too obvious silver coat darkening as she shifted into a small bat. Now they were both hidden in the shadows. Out of sight, unless the woman would walk past them. His heart pounded away fanatically in his chest. Please turn left, please turn left. 

A deep sigh sounded from the doorway. “You’re not solemnly responsible for the health of the entire team, Angela. You’re only just an intern, even though you have great promise. Just leave it to the head medics for now, focus on your research, or better yet, focus on yourself for once!” 

The woman signed and, thank goodness, turned left. Walking down the hallway. “Like you have such healthy work habits, Winston.” 

“Don’t make this about me. I’m not the one who passed out at her bench surrounded by half-finished experiments.”

A second figure appeared in the lightened reflection of the doorway and, holy shit. 

Was that a bear?! 

The massive creature lumbered into the hallways after the small form of the woman, who’d stopped walking and turned to it, him? From body language he reckoned she wasn’t the least bit scared. Must be her daemon then. He couldn’t see much from his awkward angle, just that the beast had a shining, silver-grey fur and was wearing some, armor thing? No, it wasn’t proper armor, more the leather protection you’d wear below proper armor, had it been on a human. This was on one freaking massive polar bear. 

"Dear goodness," Saba whispered, breathless. He felt her shiver where she was pressed against his neck and oh god, did he share the sentiment. As if the doberman hadn't been bad enough already! He did not want to be discovered by this woman and her huge as fuck bear daemon.

“I just misjudged. I know my limits now. It won’t happen again.” 

“Knowing you you’ll straddle those limits for all you’re worth. You need to stop, Angela.”

The woman huffed and turned around again, taking off in the other direction, away from him into the dim lighted hallway. Jesse sagged in relief. 

The bear didn’t follow. 

Saba, who’d landed on his shoulder, prodded him, panic on her small furry face. Something was wrong. The woman was walking further and further away, the bear wasn’t following. They should be in mild pain from separation at this point. 

The bear, seemingly in thought, got up onto his hind quarters and sniffed the air. 

Oh no. Oh no oh no OH NO. 

The woman said something. A sniped remark from across the hallway. But Jesse didn’t catch it. The bear also didn’t seem to catch it. Too busy sniffing the air. Then, it lowered itself onto all fours and turned right. Slowly padding down the hallway. 

Shit. 

So, this is how he’d die. In two layers of dirty clothes, pressed to a wall in an enemy base. Without his hat and with a gun with no bullets. Watching his dear Saba get torn apart by a huge as fuck bear daemon that had somehow gotten away from his person?! The fuck! 

Saba shivered and clung to his neck for all she was worth. Maybe if the bear couldn’t catch her he’d be at the end of that maw instead. The doberman certainly seemed all too willing to touch another daemon’s person in order to ensure a kill. 

He dared another peek at the glass. The lumbering form of the bear was slowly approaching his flimsy cover of cardboard boxes. 

He did all he could think to do, which was closing his eyes and freezing up. Motionless in the shadows. 

He heard footsteps, grunting. And then silence. 

Jesse carefully opened one eye a tiny fraction and immediately regretted everything. 

The bear had reached him, almost. Instead of standing over him it was standing over the pile of boxes he was desperately hiding behind. One of his massive paws opening one of the boxes on top with surprising care. So close Jesse could see every single silver hair on the beast’s arm. 

Now looking at it directly he could see that is was huge. Shining silver grey, dark nose and eyes and twitching ears. It had a short, white mane of sorts around its head, which was grey skinned instead of white furred. His front paws were also grey and, despite the huge as fuck claws, looked surprisingly like overly large human hands. He’d only seen a bear daemon twice in his entire life, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have hands like this one did.

“Angela? Do you… smell smoke? We didn’t leave the Bunsen burners on did we?” 

His muzzle was stocky, shorter than expected. His teeth were ridiculously huge, sharp fangs almost extending past his lips. He was also wearing glasses. Small rectangular ones. 

Jesse almost fainted on the spot. 

A door slammed shut and the bear turned abruptly, looking down the hallway where the woman had disappeared to. 

“Angela? Did you just…? Did you just go back into the lab!?” 

The bear growled, low and deep. It send shivers down Jesse’s spine.

“Angela! I told you! Just…” The bear thumped down on all fours and took off. Galloping down the hallway, the ground shaking under his massive weight. Sending sounds of jingling glass from the pile of boxes. 

Far off Jesse could hear a door open. A straight up roar of ‘Angelaaa’ as the bear awkwardly jammed his whole body through the human sized doorway and disappeared from view. 

Jesse was left in the hallway, in his dark corner. Pressed against the wall and breathing heavily in the silence. 

“Holy shit,” Saba whispered. “We almost died.” 

Jesse could only nod weakly, regaining his breath. “Man, I thought I was gonna pee myself. That’d have been bad, he’d have smelled that probably. Oh man.” 

“Yeah, say that again.” Saba giggled. High and slightly hysterical. 

“Haha yeah, Winston can be pretty scary if you don’t know him. He’s cool though.”

In Jesse’s defense, he did not pee himself. He did however, jump up and scream for all he was worth. Bumping backwards right into the pile of boxes. 

“Oh shit!” The young girl that had somehow managed to sneak up behind him reached out. Her bird daemon diving for the pile in vain. As Jesse toppled backwards the pile of boxes shifted with him. Falling to the ground with a deafening smash, glass shattering and spinning everywhere. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you! Then again, I didn’t think you’d start screeching like an old lady from just me saying hi.” The girl giggled. 

Jesse could only stare in shock, sitting on the ground in between a box-full of broken glass vials. A girl, he’d been snuck up on by a young girl! The kid was leaning casually against the wall behind him as if she’d been there the whole time. Her daemon, a falcon, was perched on her head looking just as amused. She… she really didn’t look like she had any business sneaking around on a military base? She was dressed in pajama’s. Black fuzzy pants and a royal blue shirt with a pattern of little golden suns. She was dark skinned and her black hair was horribly tousled. She was also barefoot, and somehow through all the chaos Jesse’s brain completely locked on to that little detail. 

“Kid!” he yelled out, partly shocked and partly panicked. The girl took no note and devolved into giggles. Her daemon taking to the air and cart wheeling around her head. Saba let out a small curse from behind him, where she’d fallen off his neck. 

“You’re not wearing shoes!” 

The girl looked at him surprised. “Yeah? So?”

“There’s glass. On the floor?! Like, all over!”

The girl yelped and jumped back. A stupid idea. Fortunately, the glass was mostly scattered through the hallway behind him so she stayed in the clear. 

The hallway behind him. 

The bear! 

Fuck, had he heard?

“Oh shit, I gotta get out of here.” He got to his feet shakily, glancing around, “Saba?”

“Oh, let me help you!”

For a fleeting moment Jesse was afraid another god damn kid had managed to sneak up on him. Thank god, the melodious male voice seemed to belong to the girls daemon, who was now swooping down, soaring dangerously close past Jesse’s side, to somewhere behind him. 

It took him a split second to realize what was going on. Too late to do anything as Saba, still in bat form, was snatched off the ground in the falcon’s talons. He flinched violently at the phantom sensation of claws wrapping around his torso as Saba squeaked in fear. He braced himself for pain, though the hold was surprisingly gentle. That however, did nothing for sensation of second hand vertigo as Saba was dragged higher and higher and…

The falcon cawed in surprise as the little bat in his claws suddenly shifted and quickly let go as Saba grew from a tiny bat into a scruffy hawk, flapping madly to get out of the falcon’s reach. 

“Oh!” The little girl was beaming, “you’re a child too! Like me!” 

“Ah, I do have a few years on you, kid!” Jesse said as he carefully stepped away from the broken glass. “Listen, you don’t have shoes and I’m not going to clean this. Here, let’s go to, ah…” He rushed in and gently ushered the girl up the other side of the hallway. Away from the bear! Further away from the bear! Saba nervously flapped back and landed on his shoulder, pressing into the side of his head. The falcon daemon following dejectedly. 

“You’re still very young. I don’t recognize your face. And I know almost everyone around here.” The girl preened. “Are you new?” She looked back, eying him suspiciously. Jesse swallowed. She might be a kid but she could still raise alarm. 

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I’m an intern. Which, you know, I am old enough for. You, however, aren’t old enough to be much of anything, I recon. So instead let me ask you what you are doing here, sneaking up on people in the middle of the night in your pajamas.” 

Her eyes narrowed a bit. Fuck, she wasn’t buying it. 

“Who are you an intern under?”

“Oh, one of the top dogs, lemme tell you! Big guy, all dark clothes, doberman daemon. You might have seen him around?” 

“Ooooh!” She smiled back at him. Oddly intense look in her eyes that made his skin crawl. “You mean… Jack, right? Jackson Amari?”

“Yep, certainly. That’s the guy! Wow, you really do know everyone,” he smiled slightly desperately.

She turned to face him, her grin growing even wider. “Well lemme tell you this, new guy. You might be an intern of Jackson, but my mom is the boss of this place, which means I outrank you.” She grinned at him savagely. “So you have to listen to me!” 

“I… what?!” Jesse gaped at her, not sure if he should be relieved because she bought his outrageous lie or insulted cause she was like, nine? He wouldn’t follow orders from a nine year old!

Yet she didn’t seem perturbed, stepping closer to him, on her toes to keep the distance between their faces at a minimum. She grinned as she raised her hand and…

“Boop” 

Bobbed his nose. At the very same time her falcon swooped in and batted a startled Saba with a wing. 

“Tag you’re it!” He took off crackling. 

“What the” Jesse just… stared at her dumbly. Just… this whole situation. Here he was miles from home in some military base, spotted in his desperate dash to get out. And now? Subjected to the whims of a nine year old who seemed to think this was all some game? He felt like he was teetering on the brink of a panic attack, had kind of felt like that since he woke up actually. He just. Wasn’t. Couldn’t. He realized in a startling moment of clarity that he’d forgotten to take his cigars and lighter out of the brim of his hat. Man, he needed a smoke. 

He turned around ready to complain about it to Saba as he heard a screech and felt talons push off of his shoulder. 

“Oh no, not for long!” Saba shrieked as she threw herself into the air and after the falcon. 

"What? Saba!"

They were playing tag. In the air. His daemon was playing tag in the air with some other daemon and the girl was still grinning at him and he felt about ready to die. 

“I have a mission for you!”

“I.. ye’all right?”

“You’re gonna be my escort. Stay close to me, okay? C’mon!” She darted off into the hallway. 

Jesse looked after her, half a mind to make a run for it, bear be damned. But Saba was still very much caught up in chasing the smaller falcon and he could already feel the beginnings of separation pain where the bond with his daemon tugged at his chest. 

He stood his ground stubbornly for another three seconds before he keened and darted helplessly after the others. How was this little girl so persuasive?!

She ginned back at him. “I’m Fareeha by the way, and this is Asimaat”

“Jesse, and that’s Sabandija.” 

She frowned at that. “Sounds… Spanish.” 

“That’s because it is!” 

She hmned a that, not paying it any mind. Instead she darted off to the right, at one of the many identical doors in the long hallway, and cracked it open, carefully peeking trough. 

“Hmn, no adults. Ok, follow me!”

Jesse hurried after Fareeha, feeling oddly light-headed, as if he was stuck in a dream. She was moving with much more purpose than he had, as if she actually had a destination in mind. He would have asked but the whole stress of the situation was really getting to him in a kind of weird way? It was as if his brain had done so much freaking out the past few hours he couldn’t keep it up anymore and he was now strangely and inappropriately calm instead. 

Saba stayed a hawk, merrily flying along with the little girl’s daemon. That too was downright surreal. Saba didn’t like being large, didn’t like being visible. He had to remind himself sternly that they weren’t out in the open now. There wouldn’t be any snipers inside. Nor any ill tempered gang members willing to land a kick onto some small kid’s daemon for being in the way. 

It was fine. They were fine. 

They would get out. They’d get away. None the wiser.

The girl led him down even more stairs, into what he was absolutely sure was a cellar. A long narrow corridor led to a large, open room bathed in dim light. Below them sat a round table, the many small chairs around it all vacated. The tabletop however, was lid up with a circular logo of sorts. An interrupted circle with two things jutting to the inside, vaguely familiar though he couldn’t place it. Jesse spotted the same logo sprayed on one of the walls, all the way from ground to ceiling. He wondered why anyone would build such a big room just to put a lone table in it. 

Two staircases led up to what seemed to be more corridors. He couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of this room. But then again, they weren’t there for long. Fareeha, who seemed to be getting really excited at this point, practically bolted up the nearest stairs. He followed her, not even bothering to ask where she was going, when he suddenly walked into a wall of cold. 

“Finally!” The girl yelled, much louder than she’d done indoors. “I’ve been inside for too long!” She let out a scream, twirled around with her arms spread, before falling backwards into the sand. Blissful expression on her face. 

Saba raced past him, wings wide open as she shot towards the darkened sky, screeching in exhilaration. The falcon following her closely. He just grinned in silent glee as he finally stepped outside. 

They'd made it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I hope you all weren’t too put off by Winston being a bear. I’ve broken my head about how even I would cast him in this universe. An animal with an animal daemon would be weird, yet Winston is very much a person so him not having a daemon also wouldn’t do. I figured this would be a fun solution.
> 
> So the Pantserbjörn, or ice bears, are a sentient race in the Golden Compass series. They live in the far north in their own kingdom and are well known for being excellent metal crafters as well as fierce warriors. Winston’s background in this is pretty similar to his canon background, just not on the moon. He’s again the only one of his kind in Overwatch, and his race and origins are not commonly known, thus he mostly hides out in watchpoint Gibraltar doing science.
> 
> Ice bears by the way do have their own version of ‘daemons’. They carry their souls in their armor, which they craft themselves out of ‘sky iron’, metal from meteorites. So there’s a small link to space still.
> 
> Also, on another note. I completely forgot to mention this at first but Gabriel’s daemon? 100% based on/inspired by this fic: [Trust goes both ways.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10153325/chapters/23069676) It's a fantastic story which I'd highly recommend.


	3. Freedom! ...Oh no nevermind

Jesse and Saba moved as one, the taste of fresh air invigorating them. Jesse jumped to the right, up onto some elevated boardwalk, as Saba made a large arch through the air and dove down. Jesse jumped at the exact right moment as Saba shifted and landed four massive hooves on the floor. Now a dappled grey mare, she took off in full gallop, human on her back. 

“Yeeehaw!” He could hear Fareeha yelling behind them, but didn’t bother listening whether it was in joy or fear. He was free! They moved in tandem, gaining speed. She anticipated his every move as he felt her hooves pounding the ground, her flank rising and falling with her massive breaths. They were finally outside, running off into the sunrise, leaving the sleeping base behind. No one on their heels, just them, the wind, the grass, the

Cliff. 

“Aaaaaah!” Jesse threw himself to the side, sliding off of Saba’s back and smacking into the dirt. Lying on the ground, eyes closed, he felt her shock running through him as her hooves lost contact with the ground and her whole, considerable mass slid off the cliff. She disappeared into the darkness, freefalling, long legs sweeping through the air. 

She turned back into a hawk about two seconds in of course, but the sensation was still jarring. 

“Noooo don’t!” Fareeha ran up to him, looking mildly shocked. “You really haven’t been here long. You can’t just run off like that, you’ll fall of the cliffs.”

He coughed, rolling on his side. His ribs felt sore. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Gibraltar is really stupid like that. Gabe and Winston are trying to build a rocket here, or like, a rocket launcher or something,” Fareeha kicked against a low, metal platform that was jutting from the ground next to them. It rattled worryingly, obviously still under construction. “They say they need a lot of money for that and don’t have time to put in fences. Kind of stupid. I think this place really needs fences. Uncle Reinhardt almost fell off once.”

Jesse paid her ramblings no mind, still on the ground reeling from the phantom sensation of freefall. “Winston? Like, the bear?” 

“Yeah but he’s not really a bear,” Fareeha frowned, looking off into the distance, “he’s like... I dunno... I guess he’s kind of a bear.” 

“What does a bear need a rocket for?” 

Fareeha shrugged, slumping down on the ground next to him, careful to avoid the patches of grass still wet from the morning dew. Her daemon, now an eagle, landed on her head. 

They sat in silence for a moment before she spoke up again. “You know, I knew you’d be a good escort. Mom says I can’t just go around the base on my own, I always need to take someone with me. That’s fine if it’s Gabe or Reinhardt, but all the other adults are so dull, they never let me do cool stuff.” She huffed and flicked a small rock off the cliff, “but you do cool stuff yourself! That was super cool, even though you almost fell! So you can’t tell me not to do the same, right?” 

“Ah, I recon I can’t?” 

“Sweet! Asim did you hear that? Can we try that too?!” 

“Just not the falling off the cliff part,” the daemon said, amused. Before swooping down and shifting into a powerful bay stallion, coat shining in the dim morning light.

“Oh god,” Jesse laid back down on the sand. “What did I get myself into?”

About three seconds in it became increasingly clear that Fareeha had not the slightest clue how to get onto a horse. She had plenty of enthusiasm, sure, tackling her daemon as if he were a climbing wall. Asimaat tried his best to help, bending through his legs to help her up. But being unfamiliar with the form, he wobbled a lot when standing up, sending Fareeha sliding down sideways onto the floor. 

“OK kid, listen, just, stop, OK. First off, hold on with your legs, you’ll pull you daemons mane out otherwise! And if you can’t get up from the ground just climb upon that walkway kinda thing over there. Yes, exactly. Now, one leg first.” 

He did eventually get Fareeha on the horse, which was a challenge considering he couldn’t touch the horse. Eventually he had to resolve to climbing back up onto Saba and holding her upper arm for balance as Asimaat took his first careful steps, getting used to carrying her weight. Their daemons flank to flank with their legs bumping into each other with every step, Jesse horridly aware that Fareeha was not wearing shoes and had her feet dangling only a few centimeters from his daemon’s flank.  
Saba didn’t share his sentiment, nimbly sidestepping to avoid her clumsy colleague. She seemed incredibly pleased with the situation, whinnying softly in enjoyment every time Fareeha caught herself from slipping and playfully tugging on the other daemons mane with her teeth. It only added to the surrealism of the situation to Jesse, who was still very aware of the fact that this was enemy territory but somehow stuck in a state of unnatural calm in where he just couldn’t find it in himself to panic about it. 

“Race ya!” Fareeha yelled as she and Asimaat took off, away from the cliff. 

He followed, Saba dashing on their heels to spur them on. This whole area seemed to be some ridge on a cliff, so he wouldn’t find an escape here either way. Most likely, he’d need to get around the building to the front and, with a bit of luck, Fareeha would lead him right to it. 

Yes, she might be an enemy in this scenario, but he felt like he really ought to keep her around. Stay close to her. 

_‘Hostage,’_ a voice, sounding suspiciously like his Deadlock ‘handler’ whispered in the back of his mind. He shivered. 

Fareeha seemed to have the time of her life, banking sharply to the right and bolting down some paved road, winding through the buildings here. The sunset was right ahead of them and Jesse took a few seconds to gauge his environment. The whole area seemed much more contemporary than the building he’d been inside off. Storage units and containers, walkways and lookout point were scattered across the large, stone cliff sides. All metal and plastic, modern and effective. The area they were running through sloped down a bit and he saw, to his disappointment, it seemingly ended in more cliffs. 

“This way!” 

On their left side was another immense building, set into the stone cliff. A huge metal door blocked their way, but Fareeha, still on horseback, snuck around to the left off it and slipped through a more human sized entryway. Hidden mostly from view by some rocks. 

They entered, to Jesse’s surprise, a giant hangar. An aircraft, a truly massive helicarrier, sat in the middle of it. The ceiling was extremely high, the room spanning outward in every direction, even having various walkways and air bridges on mid-level. It almost felt like being outside, even though they were enclosed on all sides by either sturdy metal walls or natural stone. 

He also heard voices drifting towards them from down in the hangar. 

He didn’t get much time to despair, for Fareeha and Asimaat were already galloping into the hangar, passing under one of the helicarriers massive wings. Surely, whoever was down there had heard the hoofbeats. Okay, play it cool Jesse. You belong here. You’re just the new intern keeping an eye on the bosses kid and…

The bosses kid took a sharp turn right and disappeared from view. He cursed softly and spurred Saba on, thundering after her. 

The other side of the hangar was littered with cargo. Boxes having seemingly been thrown out of the plane and left on the floor in a hurry. It struck him that perhaps this had been one of the planes to ambush Deadlock's hideout. That would explain the state of it, dusty and littered with pock holes from where people had aimed their guns at it from the ground. 

A few of those may very well be his. 

He turned and looked for Fareeha, spotting her sprinting down a lane of cargo. He followed suit. 

A man appeared ahead of them in the walkway, carrying armful of heavy metal plates. Jesse quickly lowered his speed, not wanting to be spotted. Fareeha and Asimaat had no such notions, galloping full speed ahead towards the man. 

Jesse did not see a problem initially. The man would long clear the hallway by the time Asimaat would reach him. At least, that was what he thought, until of course the man’s giant rhino daemon came lumbering after him. Her impressive bulk blocking the entire hallway.

“Fareeha! Asim! Stop!”

Too late. Asimaat showed no sign of slowing down. Saba charged forwards, but he knew she’d never get there in time. His yell made the man stop in his track and turn around. His daemon swinging her huge head to the side and spotting the charging horse. He saw her small black eyes go a fraction wider as she leaned back, bracing for impact. 

Asim landed right in front of the rhino and sunk through his hind legs, perfectly in sync with his galloping strides. Then, with grace befalling a true racing horse, his legs uncoiled, tendons snapping back and launching him into the air. Clearing the rhino with a massive jump. He stumbled a bit at his landing, but regrouped quickly, slowing down to a slow trod and prancing in place for a few seconds while Fareeha, still secure on his back, waved one arm through the air. 

“Hi Reinhardt!” 

Jesse gaped at the scene stupidly. The rhino in front of him turned back around, seemingly unshaken, and regarded Saba with a small, black eye. He realized they were standing in the middle of the hallway, right in view. 

To his left stood the man the rhino daemon belonged to along with one other man. They were truly a hilarious duo. One being obscenely large and muscled while the other was so small he would probably not even reach to Jesse’s waist. He had a beaver daemon standing next to him and, unlike the larger man who was looking at Fareeha, an expression of pure delight on his face, this man was staring at Jesse with a frown, looking him and Saba up and down.

“Oh ah…” Jesse smiled nervously as the other man, the large one, now turned to him as well. “Babysitting duty, you know how that goes. Heh.” Saba nervously hooved around the rhino who was still blocking much of the path. 

“Children, so hard to keep in place. Alas, gotta run. See ya around, gents.” He wasted no time bolting after Fareeha, leaving the two confused men in the hangar. 

Fareeha led them outside again, to Jesse’s relief. Another almost cave like area with containers and walkways and whatnot. He noted some storage building to this right, a large, heavyset door in the cliff ahead of them and sunlight, no longer the dim glow of the early morning but proper sunlight, streaming in from the right. 

He followed Fareeha as she took a turn right and went through a small tunnel, hoping he’d finally find some way to get away from the building that didn’t involve falling off a cliff.

No such luck. 

The ran into a relatively open area in where a few more container-buildings stood. An air bridge ran above them, connecting many fortunately empty passageways way up. The road they’d been following stopped a while later, ending in an open area of sorts. Buildings right, cliff left running all the way up ahead, flanked by a truly massive watchtower. 

He and Saba sneakily trotted around one of the buildings, but found only a small ridge of land ending in more cliffs.  
He looked up ahead and stood in awe as he saw the sun rise over what he now realized was the ocean. The view was amazing and almost worth the hope-shattering realization that if he wanted to get out of here he’d have to go back inside and find his way through the massive building complex again. Because that went so well last time. And it was daytime now, there’d be people inside. 

He sucked in a few shallow breaths as panic burned in his chest. 

He heard clopping hooves as Asimaat and Fareeha slowly walked up behind him. 

“You’re fun, you know, but also kind of weird. Your daemon is all flinchy and your face looks kinda weird right now. Are you crying at the ocean?” 

“So what if I am.” 

“I mean it’s cool and all but you don’t have to cry about it.”

“Shut up kid.”

She huffed and granted him a few silent seconds of despair before speaking up again. 

“You’re still the best escort I’ve had so far except for mom and Reinhardt. Hey,” she punched him in the arm, again coming uncomfortably close to Saba. “Promise you’ll take me with you again if you get stationed here!” 

He wanted to tell her that, if anything, she’d taken him with her. He really didn’t want to tell her he’d not be stationed here but would either end up in jail or in some long forgotten safehouse in the desert somewhere, if he was lucky. He settled on a tired “sure kid.”

She grinned and Asim darted around him, “pinky promise.”

He humored her. There was something on her face he couldn’t place, mirth of sorts. If he didn’t know better he’d think she was playing some prank on him. The feeling only intensified as she leaned towards him and whispered. 

“Hey Jesse, come with me. I want to show you something.” 

There was no way she wasn’t pranking him, yet he humored her, again. What was it with him not being able to say no to this little girl? Saba trotted along obediently as she parked them in the middle of the open clearing at the end of the ‘road’. 

“Now look that way!” 

He stared up ahead at where they’d come from. Another storage unit, it seemed. This one didn’t seem particularly special. It had a small water tower kind of thing on the roof, so he looked at that. It didn’t seem to have tubes coming off it. Odd.

He stared for a while, but the watertower didn’t hold his attention for very long. He looked behind him, where Asim stood next to the building, Fareeha on his back. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Fareeha paid him no mind, too busy… waving? Yeah, she was waving both arms, looking upwards at the cliff to their right. She was smiling brightly, then suddenly she brought her hands back down and made, finger guns at him? While still looking up? 

Saba turned around, Jesse following her gaze in confusion. Up there, above the massive doorway in the cliff, on another small ridge, sat two people. He recognized, with shock, that one of them was the dark skinned man that had been interrogating him. The doberman standing at attention next to him. The other, a woman, seemed bend over awkwardly, almost like… 

Sniper! 

Saba screamed. Her hooves impacting the pavement as she jumped away. Fareeha yelled something but they didn’t listen. Darting away and running for cover as the woman up on the ridge took aim and…

Everything went dark.

\---------------------||||||||---------------------  
   
Gabriel Reyes cursed as Ana jumped down the lookout point, Horus soaring behind her. Once again with absolutely no consideration for people who’s daemons couldn’t just take a jump two stories down. “C’mon, hurry,” he ushered Maria towards the stairs as he grabbed his communicator.  
“Jack! Come in Jack!” 

“Gabriel, there you are. Is Ana back yet? Have you found Fareeha?” 

Of course, Jack was still caught up in his panic of trying to find the wayward Amari child while he ‘distracted’ her mother. As if they weren’t having bigger problems at the moment. 

“Jack, there’s been a breach. I need you to check interrogation room five, and the control room. The sniper broke free.” 

“What!? Shit, does he have backup?” 

“Doesn’t seem like it, but bring your weapon just in case. Ana sniped that deadlock scum, so we have the situation under control here. Oh and don’t worry about Fareeha, she’s here. Guess who she was with?” 

He heard Jack curse and the faint sound of running. He closed the line, sparing Jack the scolding he’d no likely receive from anyone who heard he’d not only lost Ana’s daughter but managed to land her right in the middle of some daring attempted jailbreak by a dangerous enemy sniper. Good going, farm boy. 

He hurried through Winston’s unofficial work/living-space to the tunnel that led outside. Ana was crouching on the ground, her sniper rifle stained on where the rider had dropped off his horse. Horus next to her, wings half spread. Fareeha was still standing near the watchtower, looking inappropriately pleased with herself. She saw him approaching and waved. 

“Hey Gabe! Look! Your ‘intern’ taught me how to ride a horse.” She giggled, Asim prancing a slow round, showing off his form. He had a shiny brown coat and black mane and looked significantly better than the skinny grey mare the sniper had tried to dart off on. Gabriel frowned, trying to remember if there were any non-daemon horses on the watchpoint at all but came up blank. 

The horse in question was still nervously darting around her fallen rider. Snorting and wide-eyed. They’d have to scare it off, lest it accidentally trample its rider. Gabriel turned to the animal, mind made up. They could catch the wayward horse later, the Deadlock sniper was more important now. 

Surprisingly, Asim came up behind him, turning to the horse as well.

“Sabandija, it’s okay. It’s just a sleep dart. You know, tranquillizer? Your human will be fine.”  
Gabriel had only a moment to ponder that statement before the dappled grey mare looked up, eyes wide and heaving, and shifted.

Ana, who’d been sneaking up to the animal in an attempt to reach its rider, yelled and scrambled backwards as the mountain lion charged at her. Claws swept clean past her calves as she jumped backwards onto the elevated walkway. 

The creature snarled, turning swiftly, claws leaving deep couches in the dirt, and turned to Horus. 

A thousand questions shot through Gabriel’s mind but he ignored them all as he and Maria sprinted forwards. 

Horus stood his ground, wings spread and head held high. The secretary bird was massive, taller than the lion even, but so frail. All thin legs and hollow bones and feathers. And there was no way Maria could get between them in time. 

The lion reached him, bending through its lanky paws and jumping up, fangs bared and going straight to his throat. 

Horus showed no fear as he jumped backwards, swinging his massive wings down and barely getting away from the snapping jaws. He rose backwards into the air, still right in front of the snarling cat. 

He struck like lightning. One of his long legs kicking out and hitting the large cat square in the face. He was propelled upwards as the lion hit the dirt, large paw sweeping at his head, now bearing three long scratches from the bird’s talons. 

Horus merely flapped his wings and soared over the cat, back to his human. Leaving his opponent withering in the dirt. 

Maria wasted no time and jumped upon the other walkway, seeking high ground. She let out a low bark, drawing the enraged mountain lion’s attention. 

“Stand down cat!” She barked, hair on end and teeth showing, “you human has fallen, you’re outnumbered!” 

The mountain lion turned and roared at the dog, rising to her paws and charging forwards until they were nose to nose. Both growling, fangs and claws bared in a battle of dominance. Two predators locked in battle, unwilling to back down. 

A second sleep dart shot through the air with a small whizz and lodged itself into the mountain lion’s flank. Its roar cut off in a whine, eyes going wide as all aggression drained from its posture. 

Maria leaned forwards with a grin. “I said, stand down.”

The mountain lion swayed and, like her human before her, toppled down into the dirt. 

“There we go,” Ana put her rifle back onto her back with a casual shrug. “Good thinking, Maria.” She turned to the other person on the cliffs with them. “Fareeha Amari. I leave you alone for ONE night!” 

Fareeha flinched, curling into herself and hiding behind her daemons head. 

Gabriel tuned out her motherly scolding as he approached the fallen sniper. He was laying on the ground piteously, covered in caked mud. In the now bright morning sun he could clearly see the stolen overwatch uniform dangling ridiculously large from his frame. He kneeled down, knowing the man’s daemon wasn’t a snake or scorpion, he could finally look at his prisoner up close. Pulling the uniform away, he discovered the sniper was still wearing a worn down, standard issue armored vest, bulging ridiculously over his shoulders. He tore that off too with little patience. 

What little was left, lying on the ground vast asleep, was a kid. Hardly sixteen, clothed in little more than rags. All skin and bones and clearly malnourished. Gabriel felt nausea settle in the pit of his stomach seeing that this was who he’d roughly knocked unconscious and dragged into an interrogation room. This was the person he’d peppered with aggression and thin-veiled threats of torture. Just a child hidden under too large armor and a stupid cowboy hat. 

Deadlock had put a child on their roof as their first line of defense. 

He heard footsteps as Ana Amari walked up to him, seemingly done scolding her rowdy offspring. 

“I can’t believe the dreaded Deadlock sniper is a damn child!” he raged at her, “Look at this Ana! Look! He has to be like, fifteen or something! With an unsettled daemon. No wonder we couldn’t find it.” 

Ana huffs, “That kid might be a good shot but he’s not a sniper, Gabriel.” 

“He shot Carlson through the chest, Ana! Right through the arm hole of his bullet proof vest from at least sixty feet away. Got him in medbay now with a collapsed lung. Four other agents sustained serious injuries from just taking out this one shooter. If it wasn’t for the ambush, he might have actually killed off one or more of my agents.”

“Him being a good shot doesn’t make him a sniper.” Ana said, infuriatingly calm. “Snipers stand where they cannot be seen. Snipers have an escape plan. Making a clean kill is just as important as making a clean escape. This kid might have taken out an agent, maybe even two or three, but he was still stuck on that roof in full sight with nowhere to run and no more cover than a few flimsy billboards. That’s no sniper, Gabriel, that’s a martyr.” 

Gabriel huffed, before his expression softened. “In that case, good call on not outright shooting him, Ana. I know the sleep darts are harder to aim.”

“I would have shot him if he’d laid a hand of Fareeha, child or not.” 

“Mooom, lay off,” Fareeha darted over, Asimaat perched on her shoulder as a golden eagle. “He’s cool and he didn’t hurt or scare me one bit. In fact, I scared him! I snuck up on him and he yelled really high and fell into a pile of boxes.” 

“You should have gotten help from an adult, Fareeha.” 

“I did! I brought him to you! I know you always hang out here after missions. And we had fun. He did what I told him, and he taught me how to ride a horse.”

“Fareeha, he’s a sharpshooter from a dangerous gang.” 

Fareeha pouted, “you’re no fun.” 

At that point Horus joined them, the secretary bird walking over slowly and studying the sleeping kid before turning to Asimaat.

“Asim, what did you say his name was? And his daemon’s?” 

“He said his name was Jesse,” the golden eagle replied. “Don’t think he gave us a last name. His daemon is Sabandija. He calls her Saba.” 

“Sabandija,” Gabriel whispered. Ana snuck a sideways gaze at him and noticed he was staring off into the distance. Odd expression on his face. 

“Sounds Spanish," she send Gabriel a pointed glare. Fareeha giggled somewhere behind her. 

“It is. Sabandijas. Vermin.” 

Ana gasped in shock, looking over at the sleeping mountain lion behind them in the sand. “I highly doubt his parents called her that.”

“Me too.” 

“Are you gonna send him to jail?” Leave it to Fareeha to get right to the sensitive questions. 

“Fareeha, we…” 

“You can’t send him to jail! He’s cool!” 

“We can’t just not send him to jail because you happen to find him cool!” 

“We can’t send him to jail either way,” Ana mused, “not if he’s a minor. Not to mention we don’t have his legal identity. He might not even have one.”

They all mused over that for a while. Looking over the boy and the mountain lion snoring peacefully on the ground. 

It was Gabriel who broke the silence. Leaning over the boy, pointedly. “Sniper or not, he is a very good shot…” 

He pointedly ignored Fareeha’s broad grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be a very small epilogue after this. Barely anything really, but putting it in this chapter would have made it too bulky. 
> 
> There we go! The more-or-less end of this story! I'm not sure if I got it across clearly, but this entire chapter is set in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, more specificly, the entire map. The route Fareeha and Jesse travelled was the standard route of the payload except backwards. Which begs the question: Who is the payload? Who is the escord? No one knows. 
> 
> Also surprise cameo from Torb and Reinhardt! I know someone is going to ask me this question at some point so I'll just answer it right away. Why is Reinhardt's daemon not a lion? Well, it is true that lions are seen as very just and noble, and in-game Reinhardt is associated with lions. However, lions are also cats, which means they're graceful, somewhat sneaky, and also kind of lazy. In the wild, they pick their fights carefully, so they don't get exhausted from hunting. Reinhardt, in my view, is not graceful, or sneaky. He also doesn't seem like the one to carefully pick his fights. Instead, he just picks all the fights and wins. Hence, a rhino. 
> 
> I'd imagine in this universe, his 'charge' would just be him jumping on his daemons back and having her run through a wall or something. 
> 
> Torbjörn has a beaver. Much less thought went into this. Seriously, looking at my notes, it just says 'builds things'. 
> 
> And about Saba, well, Sabandija actually. Let's just say that calling a daemon, aka. someones soul, 'Vermin', is very much a taboo. Suffice to say, Jesse got into Deadlock at a very young age and was not treated very well there. As you might have guessed.


	4. Post-mission paperwork

“Bad news Morrison, very bad news.”

Jack Morrison looked up from his paperwork to see his two colleagues plus daemons saunter into his office. Gabriel, surprisingly, wearing a smug grin. Even Ana seemed amused, which honestly was a relief after how she’d been yesterday, when he was forced to admit he’d lost track of her daughter.  
He hadn’t even seen Fareeha after the whole fiasco, even though Gabriel had assured him she was safe and unharmed. 

“If it’s bad news, Gabriel, then why are you grinning like that?”

“Deadlock sniper kicked the bucket,” Gabriel continues, unperturbed. “Turned out he did have a scorpion daemon. Got the sting right before dawn, we were just in time to see him gurgle his last breath.” 

Jack huffed, displeased. He highly doubted that was true. Especially after he’d found Gérard in the interrogation room the day before, bound, stripped to his underwear and furious. 

“Lacroix will be pleased to hear that. Will this set you back?” 

Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, we got all the information we need to flush the rest of the gang out. It’ll be a breeze.” He pulled down a chair and sat opposite the commander, still grinning. 

“On a completely unrelated note, I need a favor, Jack. I’d like to borrow one of your IT people, preferably one who can shut up and isn’t too keen on official paperwork.”

He sighed deeply, “are you going to tell me what it’s for?” 

“I actually will, this time. I new blackwatch hireling in need of some identity papers. I’ll even show you the files this time, how’s that Jackie.” 

A small bundle of papers was pushed across the table. He looked them over with a frown. Only a few pictures, very little information. Oh but did he recognize that stupid cowboy hat.

“Please tell me you’re not hiring the Deadlock sniper.” 

“Sharpshooter,” Anna corrected, and with a shit-eating grin that rivaled Gabriel’s she added, “and of course not. We would never.” 

Jack sighed deeply, rubbing his forehead. He knew full well he wouldn’t get to say no. “I’ll put Xiao on it, he’ll be happy to do something different for once.” He looked the pages over briefly. “Is that his old name?” 

“No,” Gabriel replied, “everything that’s on there needs to go into the new identification papers. Whatever is missing Xiao can just make up. It’s not really important anyways. Working for Blackwatch he’ll get send out with even faker identities than this one. It’s just for our own administration.”

Jack mused over that. “Jesse McCree, that is a terrible name for a cowboy.” 

Ana nodded sagely. 

“At least his daemon’s name is reasonably normal.” The other two laughed at that, making Jack wonder what the hell he was missing. 

“As long as he ditches the stupid hat, I’m on board. Better not let him anywhere near Gérard.” 

“Don’t worry Jack,” Gabriel said, “he’ll be a perfectly regular agent in no time, you’ll see.”

Jack could feel a headache coming up. He sighed. Somehow, he doubted that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And then they lived happily ever after making fun of/exasperating Jack for years to come. The End.  
>  Thank you all for reading ^^ 
> 
> Final daemon list:  
> Jesse McCree: Saba - unsettled  
> Gabriel Reyes: Maria - doberman  
> Gérard Lacroix: ??? - lynx  
> Angela Ziegler: ??? - not a bear  
> Winston: A BEAR?!  
> Fareeha Amari: Asimaat - unsettled  
> Reinhardt Wilhelm: ??? - rhino  
> Torbjörn Lindholm: ??? - beaver  
> Ana Amari: Horus - secretary bird


End file.
